I missed last week but this week I got to it. Something off about the stories but mostly ok. I do have a question on Jewish history though. In among the cast they have sprinkled several Black actors in among the Moses' people and later. They cast Sampson as black . and the Philistines as White. They made a point to have two Philistines condemn Samson for marrying a white philistine girl. Saying tey shouldn't mix.

Seems contrived to me.

But my question still is "would there have been black Israelites ?"

Dave

_________________________
There are 10 kinds of people.Those that understand binary and those that don't.

The American black people are often called Afro-Americans because they are descended from Africans. Their ancestors were brought to America by Christian slave-owners, to work in the cotton and sugar plantations. As the Hebrews were entirely a Semitic people, with light brown skins and prominent noses, there never were any black Hebrews. Claims for overwhelming evidence to the contrary are never followed up with valid, independent citations of that evidence.

AnswerThe majority of "blacks" in the United States were brought to the U.S. by European slave traders. They were brought to the states from the West coast of Africa. The tribes living in west Africa the Yoruba, the Ashanti, the Akin, can all be traced back to Ancient Israel. After the fall of Jerusalem. The tribes of Judah and Benjamin fled to West Africa. Read The Hebrewisms of West Africa by Joseph J. Williams. The Hebrews of the Bible were indeed "black": Job 30:30, Lamentations 4:8, 5:10, Jeremiah 14:2. Also see scriptures where people confused the Hebrews with the people of Kemet or Egypt who were black: Exodus 2:19, Acts 21:38, Genesis 50:3. Read African Origins of Civilization-Myth or Reality by Diop for evidence of the African identity of the Egyptians. There is also overwhelming evidence that the native Americans were the 10 tribes that were "lost" after the nation of Israel was taken into captivity by the Assyrians read the writings of Frey Diago Duran.

Answer:The answer is no. Recent DNA analyses have shown that the Jews are Semitic, Middle Eastern people, not African nor Native American, despite sensationalist claims. And our tradition is that Abraham and his relatives were fair-skinned Mediterranean people.

There may very well be some descendants of the Ten Tribes among the peoples of Africa, but these (if they exist) are relatively isolated cases of individual tribes. More importantly, our Judaism depends upon our tradition. Both religious and non-religious Jews are able to trace their ancestry to their Jewish grandparents and traditions. But Asian or African groups who suddenly appear after two millenia of no contact, with no Tanakh or Talmud or Jewish marriage laws, cannot enter the Jewish lineage without converting to Judaism.

Now, let us dissect the above "proof" quotes:1) Job 30:30. First of all, it isn't clear that Job was Jewish. Secondly, he was describing a condition which resulted from his afflictions.

2) Lamentations 4:8 and 5:10. These verses are showing the effects of the famine upon the people, as stated explicitly in 5:10.

3) Jeremiah 14:2. "Judah mourns, and the gates thereof languish, they bow down in black unto the ground; and the cry of Jerusalem ascends." Here too, the prophet is describing conditions during the Destruction and the concurrent famine, not the usual state of affairs.

4) Exodus 2:19. Moses was raised in Pharaoh's palace. He spoke Egyptian, and was likely groomed and dressed as such. The daughters of Jethro were referring to his deportment, not his complexion.

5) Genesis 50:3 merely says that Joseph embalmed his father.

6) Acts. Since the quote comes from a time when the Greeks and Romans had already intermingled with the Egyptians for 350 years, it need not be talking about skin color.

The Israelites originate in what's now the Shatt el Arab, the river formed at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. So no, no sub-Saharan African mixture, at least at the origin. On the other hand, Israel is in Egypt for a heck of a long time, between 250 and 400 years, according to various perspectives. Egypt is not a sub-Saharan country, obviously, but there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing with Nubia and Ethiopia, and I have to assume that the same thing happened to the Israelites that happened to Africans and Europeans in the Americas, perhaps to a lesser extent but mixing I have no doubt took place.

All of that has probably nothing to do with the representation of the text in the program, though. Race-blind casting is pretty much the norm in the theater, anyways, although not quite yet in Hollywood. I remember when Kenneth Branagh directed his version of "Much Ado About Nothing" and decided to cast Keanu Reeves and Denzel Washington as half-brothers. No biggie, as my brother in law used to say.

Pirate
Old And In The Way
Registered: 02/21/07
Posts: 3047
Loc: Missouri

The same question was posed by one of our greatest statesman about the knights of the round table in merry old England...Flip Wilson once ask the question.....in the days of old, when the knights were bold surely there must have been dark knights?

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